Of all the display devices recently developed, LCD devices, irrespective of their sizes, are rapidly increasing in number of applications. In an ordinary LCD device, pixels arranged in the form of matrix are driven by selectively energizing one of scanning lines (i.e. gate lines) and by applying signal voltages to the pixels from signal lines (i.e. data lines). Accordingly, each pixel is controlled by a single scanning line and a single signal line.
JP-A-5-188395 discloses an LCD device wherein two pixels are electrically connected with a single signal line, one of the two pixels is controlled by a gate line, and the other pixel is controlled by the gate line and another gate line adjacent to the gate line, so that the number of the used signal lines can be halved.
JP-A-5-265045 discloses an LCD device wherein a signal voltage is applied in a time division manner through a single signal line to two pixels controlled by two adjacent gate lines so that the number of the used signal lines can be halved.
In the LCD device disclosed in JP-A-5-188395, wiring conductors for sending gate signals and signal voltages through them are to be laid out in pixels controlled by two thin film transistors (TFTs) and therefore the aperture, i.e. ratio of light emitting area within a pixel to the entire area of the pixel, will become smaller. In the LCD device disclosed in JP-A-5-265045, on the other hand, even when a signal is sent through a single signal line to two pixels, the number of the gate lines increases so that the aperture is adversely affected. Also, in both LCD devices disclosed in JP-A-5-188395 and JP-A-5-265045, a signal voltage is applied to two pixels through a single signal line. Accordingly, these types of LCD devices can be adapted to at best the double division drive method. As a result, if these devices are to be used with an LSI for the triple division drive (RGB time division drive wherein R, G and B signal voltages are sent through a single line in a time division manner) which has been increasingly put to practice, the resultant circuit structure will be complicated.